Ernesto "Che" Guevara

"Man truly achieves his full human condition when he produces without being compelled by the physical necessity of selling himself as a commodity."

If any of you have seen The Motorcycle Diaries, a movie depicting the travels of Che Guevara as a young man through Latin America. You would know his quirky travel companion and friend through that trip, Alberto Granado. Just two days ago, Alberto Granado died at 88 years old, his recent death and the revolutions happening in the Middle East inspired me to write this post.

For those of you that don’t know Che, he was a revolutionary, physician, author, intellectual, guerilla leader, diplomat and military theorist. He was Fidel Castro's right hand man in the historic Cuban revolution. He left his home in Buenos Aires, Argentina at 23 traveling through Chile all the way to Mexico where he met Fidel. The two went on from there to over-take the Batista regime. Throughout his travels he saw the struggles and injustices going on in Latin America and it inspired him to devote his life to helping people and stand up to corrupt governments that were causing a lot of the issues.

He is described as being as being driven by moral rather than material incentives. Even after taking over Cuba where he could have stayed and enjoyed the good life with Fidel having anything he could possibly dream. He left and went out to help other peoples and army’s in revolutions. He went on to Congo to assist in their armed revolution and then Bolivia where he then was captured by American Forces and executed.